Donating to software projects - or, more accurately, open source projects. It's hardly new, it's hardly rare, and I'm sure most of us have donated at some point. That's probably why Canonical has opened Ubuntu up for donations - but with a twist.

Today, we're making it easier for people to financially contribute to Ubuntu if they want to. By introducing a 'contribute' screen as part of the desktop download process, people can choose to financially support different aspects of Canonical's work: from gaming and apps, developing the desktop, phone and tablet, to co-ordination of upstreams or supporting Ubuntu flavours.

As part of the download process, you can choose to support any combination of the following areas:

Make the desktop more amazing

Performance optimisation for games and apps

Improve hardware support on more PCs

Phone and tablet versions of Ubuntu

Community participation in Ubuntu development

Better coordination with Debian and upstreams

Better support for flavours like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntuv

Tip to Canonical—they help make it happen

Looking at the list, I'm wondering which of the options would be most popular among OSNews readers. I'm pretty sure the one about Debian and the other Ubuntu flavours would win out here, and I must admit that I personally would opt for more and better support for Kubuntu as well.

The biggest question is of course if you would support Ubuntu in the first place. After all, unlike a lot of other distributions, Canonical does have revenue streams, and Mark Shuttleworth isn't exactly strapped for cash either. This raises the question if Ubuntu deserves donations in the first place - there are loads of distributions and software projects that do more with less.